How Website Speed Influences Search Ranking?

Technological advancements have brought many benefits to people and businesses. However, technology has made people a bit more spoiled as well. This is becoming obvious with the ever-growing expectations that users have each year. People expect from businesses to deliver everything they need quickly and accurately. One of the biggest expectations that users have is the demand for fast website speed.

How Website Speed Impact Search Ranking?

Back in 2010, Google announced that website speed for desktops and mobile devices will be a determining factor for search rankings, which is no surprise since slow website speed automatically leads to bad user experience. Nowadays, every business has a website and it’s in their best interest to make the customers as happy as possible. That’s why website speed plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. If that isn’t enough, trying to neglect website speed will get you noticed by Google and your website will get penalized. Here are a few ways how website speed influences search rankings.

Impatient Customers

When it comes to customer expectations, you must understand that every second counts. About 47% of customers will expect for your web page to load in less than two seconds. However, that doesn’t mean that customers will immediately leave after two seconds, but the longer they wait, the more unsatisfied they are. Moreover, 79% of customers that aren’t happy with your website speed will probably never make purchases on your website again.

That leads to bad reputation and if customers start reporting your website as slow and sluggish, you can bet that Google will take action to lower your rank. On the other hand, fast website speed will have a positive outcome on your search rank, since both Google and your customers prefer fast websites. A fast website means that people will view more pages, which improves the chances of having more sales.

Mobile Friendly

Mobile devices are storming the industry and many users nowadays prefer to browse the web from their smartphones or tablets. This new trend forced business owners to redesign their websites to become mobile friendly, which is another factor that Google takes into consideration when determining the website’s rank. To make things more difficult, mobile users expect website speed to be as fast on mobile devices as it is on desktops and even faster.

That’s why 64% of mobile users expect the website page to load in less than four seconds. When you consider that average time for a mobile landing page to load is 22 seconds, you’ll realize how big of an impact mobile speed can have. Mobile users expect a fast experience and every business that doesn’t deliver will lose customers. Since mobile friendliness on a website is a ranking factor, so is the website speed for mobile devices.

Deliver on the Expectations

Both your customers and Google, who decides your ranking status, expect from you to deliver on website speed. Neglecting to do so leads to lower ranking, which means that people won’t find you online easily and you won’t appear in search results as often as you’d like. Do yourself a favor and optimize your website so that it’s a lot faster.

For instance, you can reduce the page loading time by using the right size and format for your images. Also, having IT support services on standby is a good idea in case you need to modify or repair your network. Moreover, enable your browser caching. That will transfer some of the data onto your customer’s computers and help the page load faster.

It Affects Your Business

Customer dissatisfaction can have a negative impact on both your website’s rank and your business. Even one second of delay can reduce your customer’s satisfaction by 16%. Moreover, 44% of customers that had a bad experience with your website, especially if it’s slow, will tell their friends about it. You really don’t need a bad word-of-mouth promotion if you want your business to succeed.

Furthermore, slow website speed creates unhappy customers and it can also have a negative impact on your revenue. Let’s assume that your business nets $100,000 per day. A one-second delay can cost you $7,000 daily and that’s $2.5 million in lost sales at the end of the year. Also, because of that one-second delay, you can lose 11% in page views and have a 7% reduction in your conversion rate.

Fast website speed is crucial in today’s world. People expect to browse through your website without any delays or interruptions and it’s up to you to provide them with that experience. Otherwise, you’ll be dealing with unsatisfied customers and rank penalties from Google.